Posted on 03/12/2018 11:56:13 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
The Car Dyke is an eighty mile artificial water channel, thought to have been constructed by the Romans from the first century AD... The Dyke runs along the western edge of the fens from the River Cam near Cambridge all the way to the River Witham, just south of Lincoln. Many stretches are protected as a scheduled ancient monument... William Stukeley... came up with the idea that Car Dyke was a canal... to supply the Roman Armies of the north with grain and food from Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire with drainage as a secondary function, a view which still perpetuates until today...
In 1989 the Trust for Lincolnshire Archaeology investigated of part of the Lincolnshire section of Car Dyke in Baston, just a few miles north of Eye. The excavations showed that the dyke was originally 13 metres wide and 3.6 metres deep and the Dyke originally contained fast flowing water. They came to the conclusion that it was constructed as a catchwater drain but couldn't rule out it being used as a local means of transportation. In 120AD the Roman Emperor Hadrian visited Britain and the sections dating from this period may be associated with his plan to settle the Fens, which gives weight to the drainage theory.
Excavations at the south end of Car Dyke in Waterbeach near Cambridge in the 1990s found slightly different results and what seemed to be the remains of a Roman-era boat and cargo of pottery. Other archaeological investigations have found coal from the Midlands in use at a cluster of Roman-era coal-burning forges sited between Cambridge and The Wash and these provide evidence of trade and transport along the Car Dyke. At its northern end accounts of Roman Britain describe it as an extension of the Foss Dyke.
(Excerpt) Read more at eyepeterborough.co.uk ...
There was so much freight traffic from the port of Rome (Ostia) back and forth that there is a partially confirmed theory that they had a canal, running paralell to the Tiber so that they could run traffic one way on each.
Saw a terrific show on TV about the Port of Ostia that has been rediscovered using sattelite imagery.
It’s an odd thing that so much of Rome’s oldest suburb survived all the meltdown crap at the end of the western empire. Mussolini hired thousands of laborers to excavate the light layer of soil covering everything. The Roman-era port is all silted up and the estuary has moved out to sea as it were.
http://www.visitlazio.com/en/dettaglio/-/turismo/617931/porto-di-ostia-antica
http://www.google.com/search?q=port+of+ostia&spell=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&tbm=isch
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3303942/posts?page=9#9
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3072404/posts?page=14#14
Medieval canals spotted from air
BBC | Sunday, August 31, 2008 | unattributed
Posted on 08/31/2008 7:20:50 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2072133/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1371966/posts?page=12#12
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3019050/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3072404/posts
From Hand-drag to Jumbo: A Millennium of Dredging
[note: this topic *should* have a post about Drusus’ canal near the Rhine mouth, but doesn’t]
IADC (International Association of Dredging Companies) | 1999 | IADC
Posted on 07/30/2004 8:27:24 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1181760/posts
[singing] there is a dance hall in the car dyke... whoops, that’s mardyke...
Wansdyke Links, And other Roman and Dark Ages Earthworks in Britain and Ireland
http://www.wansdyke21.org.uk/links.htm
Updated ping message only. I've found some older stuff today due to searching on 'canal'.
Map of the route of the Car Dyke. Image reproduced from Simmons, B B and Cope-Faulkner, P. 2004. The Car Dyke: Past Work, Current State and Future Possibilities. Lincolnshire Archaeology and Heritage Reports Series No 8. Fig 1 Physical remains – rural Lincolnshire
Great link. I’ve walked along Car Dyke may times in the past. Beautiful, quiet and occasionally eerie as the night falls.
Nice!
In the Fen Country - some great photographs of the landscape in that video too, including some of Car Dyke.
I have no idea who that is, but given the title of the thread I’m going to assume some sort of Automotive Lesbian.
Car Dyke Route |Jan 26, 2019 |Rex Gibson | YouTube
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